Sponsored Links

By Debbie Schlussel
Apparently, there is another high-ranking member of the Bush Administration as boneheaded as the Julie Myers/ICE Princess pick: Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt.
In a letter he sent out to his entire agency, Leavitt urged employees to buy foreign cars and give the back of the hand to SUVs. While I dislike the SUV-hate campaign waged by lefties and now Leavitt, it’s the first part that’s most disturbing. America’s auto industry is fighting to stay alive, and a buttinsky HHS Secretary is trying to make sure rigor mortis sets in.

Boneheaded Bush HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt

More from today’s Detroit Free Press about this incredibly stupid written utterance, which should have been grounds for his immediate resignation:

The members of Michigan’s congressional delegation may have their political differences, but not when it comes to defending Detroit’s automakers from a newsletter sent to thousands of federal employees which they say encourages workers to buy foreign vehicles.
Every member of the House delegation signed the letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt complaining about an “HHS Energy News Report”‚Äù that went out to the agency’s 67,000 employees last month.
The newsletter – which is intended to tell workers how they can save energy at home and on the job – not only claimed that every new sport utility vehicle sold pumps more harmful emissions into the atmosphere, it included a list of 12 cars rated tops by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy as being fuel efficient, along with the line: “When shopping for vehicles, consider these models.”
Toyota, Nissan and Honda were represented. But not a single American automaker

What a bonehead. And beside that, what the heck is a Republican HHS Secretary doing getting involved in picking winners and losers in the free market of auto sales?
Isn’t that what Democrats do? Aren’t Republicans always wailing about big government’s improper interference in the free market and in dictating what we should do with our own property and private lives?
Not the Bush Republicans, apparently. Can’t wait until they go.

28 Responses

They don’t care about all the closed factories and empty buildings. They don’t want a financially independent middle class, they want us poor and uninformed, ready to jump if there’s any work today. Just like the greedy slave-owners, all they care about is dirt cheap labor and power for themselves. We’re all supposed to work in shopping centers owned by giant corporations, for no benefits, and be grateful.

Actually, Leavitt has a point about buying foreign cars. Big SUVs can only be made and sold because the US auto industry is skirting environmental laws that were meant, as a side benefit, to promote independence from foreign oil and defund Jihad. The first law they skirt is that family passenger vehicles are supposed to have high mileage, but SUVs fall under the loophole by being mis-classified as small trucks. The second law is that manufacturers are fined if the average fleet fuel economy is below “x” amount. That means if you buy a fuel efficient sudan from GM, that allows them to sell one more fuel-hoggish SUV and not be fined (as much). That is why it is better to buy a car from a manufacturer that makes NO fuel hoggish passenger vehicles, and in the current market, that means buying foreign cars. Then GM et al would be fined enough so that it wouldn’t pay to make many SUVs, and the SUVs would be so pricey that the only people who would buy them would be people who absolutely needed them for some purpose.

It’s a sad situation alright, but worth remembering how we got there. “We blew it,” Lee Iacocca told Jimmy Carter. “The industry is making the wrong kind of cars. We let the imports steal our lunch.” Okay, so fast-forward to 2007 and here’s my question: if American-owned companies build their cars in Mexico and Japanese companies build theirs in Tennessee, which are the ‘American cars’?

Debbie,
It seems you didn’t think this one through. First of all, what is an American car? The Big 3 build many of their vehicles in Mexico and Canada. In 1992 the US government created an uproar when the Ford Crown Vic was labelled as foreign by some regulatory agency (seeing as how many government vehicles happen to be Crown Vics). The Honda Accord is built using mostly American parts in Marysville, OH. The Toyota Camry is built in Georgetown, KY. My vehicle, the Nissan Maxima, was built in Tennessee. Hyundai built a state of the art auto plant in South Carolina, while Toyota has built two plants, each worth over $1 billion, in Tennessee.
The Big 3 have nobody but their own poor management, poor relations with labor, and abuses of unions to blame. Do you think it is any irony that all the auto plants I mentioned are opening up in Right to Work states? Nobody needs to deal with the hastle of militant unions – the corruption, the coercion, the laziness, etc. The stories I have heard about what has gone on in union shops from union guys themselves are amazing. Many of them are now out of jobs, as the issues regarding industry are the same in Cleveland as in Detroit. The steel industry is getting killed by operations like Nucor opening up in right to work states. Same goes for the tire industry. BF Goodrich relocated to South Carolina several years ago – now that was a killer.
Lack of management vision is also to blame. To the big 3 – quit building big, ugly, inefficient, unreliable behemoths of cars. You need customers other than police/govt and rental car companies. For me, the reliability issue is the biggest thing; and the Big 3 just cannot compete there.
As to the SUV’s – what is your issue with some innocent memo from a boss to his employees telling them a pretty common sense way to save on energy costs? It seems pretty common sense to me that if you want to save energy costs, you don’t need a 2 ton 4×4 that can navigate Donner Pass or the Plains of the Serenghetti to drive your kids to soccer practice? I don’t see a problem.
I usually agree with you but I think you have just made a mountain out of a mole hill.

I’m sorry but the boneheads are the US auto makers, who’ve had 30 years to get back to the top and failed miserably. Lots of execs and managers sucked up tons of money and perks over the years, giving way too little in return to their companies and leaving them with broken balance sheets.
What do you suggest? Socialist subsidies for purchases of US cars? I don’t think so.
Maybe we should censor JDPowers reports so that no one will know the better? I thought not.
Cars are a compete or die industry. Major surgery is required. The patient is already comatose.
I own a Toyota. There won’t be a better US equivalent when my next trade-in come up. I’ll bet my bottom dollar on that.
And it’s a pity. The US needs 2 auto makers at the most. And they’ve got to be slim and trim and on the cutting edge of engineering and design. And they’ve got to keep moving.
All the parts are there. Assembly and vision required.

JasonBourne81 makes some good points here, but that doesn’t change the fact that Leavitt’s remarks were ill-advised.
Speaking as one who deals with all the Federal agencies, I can tell you that HHS is *one* of the worst, but the worst–bar none–is EPA.
Whoops, Leavitt was formerly head of EPA. In govt, it is NOT the cream that rises to the top, folks.

All you have to do is rate countries, 0 through 10, based on infrastructure and standard of living, and charge a tariff according to the disparities. Once China or Mexico meet OUR overhead costs, let them import all they want.
What’s happening now is a race to the bottom with regard to living conditions and standards. We can either lower our standards or export all our jobs. We are exporting all our jobs.

Ventry–
You’re right, of course, but if the INTENT is one-world govt, far easier for us to lower our standards, than for others to raise theirs.
Hard to fight this trend when our leaders have been traitors for decades, probably even longer. Reagan is celebrated only because he was the best of the worst…

Debbie,
You’re absolutly right about Mike Leavitt. I’ve personally met this man when he was Utah’s Governor, and he was also a jerk back then. He often competed with SLC Mayor Ross “Spanky” Anderson in the local “Who’s More Socialist” contests (aka: the local news channels).
Utah politics are so @#$% up. Maybe there’s something in the water – who knows?

What some of you blame on the US auto industry in fact, factually incorrect. They are in this situation because of Government mandated regulations and the support of the UAW union contracts by the Democratic party.
Even today our own Government regulations support foreign car companies in the form taxes and tariffs. The VAT also makes foreign car companies more profitable thanks to congress.
The hatred of the SUV is another concocted bunch of BS being promoted by environmental wackos. If our Government did not ban the production of domestic crude, there would not be an issue.
We have more crude oil available to us in Alaska than all of the middle east yet because of our own Congress, production is banned.
In 1976 Arco discovered the largest single find of crude oil in the world yet the energy department forced them to cap the well and later decreed Gull Island to be protected nature preserve to make it impossible to extract the crude oil there.
ANWAR is another example.
Debbie is correct to be outraged that an American official has no loyalty to its own that employ many thousands of Americans.Michael Leavitt is a traitor IMHO.
I suppose some of you will be cheering when the Communist Chinese start importing and building cars here in 2008 yet again throwing more Americans out of work using slave labor to under cut our manufacturers.

“Maybe we should censor JDPowers reports so that no one will know the better? I thought not.”
Actually the US companies are competative on JDPowers.
It isn’t the automakers that haven’t changed in 30 years. Its public perception.
And the US Automakers make Trucks and SUVs because that the Japanese don’t have a protected home market to leverage for those vehicles. The Japanese have to compete with US automakers on an even footing and can’t penetrate the market.

I expect this kind of idiocy from the Detroit “Free” Press, it ought to be free since it is only useful as TP for the homeless in downtown Detroit, but the rest of the commentary here is amazing. All the letter did was point out how employees could save on fuel costs. Most of the cars on the list are actually assembled in the US and Canada. The three US auto companies are thankfully dieing due to Management and UAW incompetence and greed. At the same time there are more autoworkers in the US than ever, they just now work for Toyota, Honda, Nissan etc. the US automakers have relied on political bailouts and fixes like import quotas on trucks and SUVs, for 30 years. Why should the federal government care if you buy a Ford Taurus made in Windsor, Ontario or Nissan Maxima made in Tennessee? All the letter told department employees was which cars were more fuel efficient and that SUV’s use more gas. Pretty obvious to most folks but based on the number of moronic comments I see above bashing the letter and favoring protectionist policies maybe the obviuous isn’t so obvious to those who react emotionally and without the benefit of facts?

Scotty–
Good point! I haven’t heard about Gull Island for years. More treason from our govt…
Posted by: Red Ryder [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 20, 2007 05:41 PM
**************************************
Thanks, It just blows me away that people do not realize that our own Government has lowered our standard of living for the sake of “Free Trade” and the quest for a NAU or SPP.
The whole Arco Gull Island debacle is a perfect example. We are paying $80.00 for a barrel of oil propping up fanatics in the middle east when we have enough oil domestically to bring the price of crude oil down to around 8-14 bucks a barrel.
People really need to read the history on the Alyeska Pipeline fiasco in Alaska and how the Department of Energy has forced us to import foreign oil when we could be energy independent.
The congress should be prosecuted for manipulating the oil industry and lowering the standard of living in the USA. They support an oil cartel, OPEC, in the middle east that has resulted in our Military having to sacrifice our own treasure to ensure the flow of oil when we could produce our own substantially increasing our standard of living.
It boggles my mind that we are sending billions of dollars to Saudi Arabia,Iran,Venezuela,Kuwait and now Iraq when we could completely bankrupt those terrorist nations by allowing domestic production.
Lindsey Williams has now put his book on this subject,The Energy Non-Crisis, online free to download or read.http://www.reformation.org/energy-non-crisis.html
Another good read is Jerome Corsi and Craig Smith’s book; Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil.
“Dr. Corsi and I outlined in our book America’s ability to be energy independent. If we had opened up the ANWR, fast tracked offshore oil leases in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), pursued deep oil in the Gulf (as found this last year in the Jack Two Well), pursued alternatives (like solar, wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear) and encouraged conservation we could now tell the Iranians to go fly a kite.”
It just amazes me that people have forgotten the 1970’s oil crisis and how Arco was prevented from making this nation completely energy independent from the madmen and dictators that now hold us hostage for $80.00 per barrel oil.
I can remember all the MSM announcements that Arco hit it big then it disappeared from the headlines.
Some would call this treason, myself included.
Just like with Illegal Immigration, our own Government has sold us out to elite globalists that want to destroy the middle class and our soveignity.

enrgee
People like you make me sick. I cannot believe you are actually cheering for the destruction of the American Auto industry.
You spewed:
“The three US auto companies are thankfully dieing due to Management and UAW incompetence and greed”
Do you have any idea how many jobs are going to be lost if the auto makers are destroyed?
It amazes me that so many Americans are actually rooting for the destruction of American jobs and the middle class in the name of Globalism.
You must be the product of our wonderful Government Schools that hate America when you say this; “I see above bashing the letter and favoring protectionist policies maybe the obviuous isn’t so obvious to those who react emotionally and without the benefit of facts?”
What facts are those?
You probably are another one that believes that out sourcing does not hurt this country. You probably believe that NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO are good for “Free Trade”.
When your job is shipped off to India or to the Red Chinese, you may just wake up from your cheer leading slumber like 6 million other Americans who have experienced first hand how great “Free Trade” has been for them.
Pathetic

Scotty,
First, I’d like to correct a trivial detail of my above post. It’s Mississippi the Toyota plants were built in, not Tennessee. Minor mind fart 🙂
You make some excellent points. Environmental whackos and liberals are pretty much responsible for the price of oil now. We need to elect more conservatives to Congress and start drilling in Alaska, start more safe offshore drilling, and build more refineries. We have not had a refinery built in 30 years in the United States thanks to Chappy Kennedy et al. Once new refineries are built, we could close the old ones for much needed updates and bring them back online. Refinery efficiency has been increased markedly in the last 30 years, and we are losing out big time by relying on these older refineries.
As to the American Auto Industry, you did not address the fact that there are millions of auto jobs being created every day in right to work states, using mostly American made parts. I know for a fact that more Cleveland manufactured steel goes into the Honda Accord at the Marysville, OH plant than into the Ford Taurus (manufactured in Cleveland). It is largey poor management, quality control, and union incompetence/greed that is causing the demise of the Big 3. Ever hear of Arthur Deming? He was laughed out of Detroit when he proposed his quality control system. People in Yokohoma listened, and went from producing the oil burning little shitboxes of the 60s and 70s to the excellent quality vehicles they manufacture today. The Japanese commitment to quality control does in fact far outdo the Big 3’s.
I know a guy in Youngstown who is a senior guy at the Lordstown, OH auto plant (manufactures Cobalts and Sunfires). He has a high school education, earns well into the 6 figures, and talks about how he no longer has any DVDs to watch at work because they never have anything for him to do. This man lives in a $350 k house, he sent his 3 kids to private, expensive colleges. He drives a loaded Sierra Truck, his wife drives a late model Caddy DTS, he has a mint condition IROC Camaro from the 80s, as well as an 60th anniversary edition Vette. Am I hating on the guy for what he has? No. More power to him – but how can an industry compete when this kind of stuff happens?
A girl I dated when I was a kid had a dad who worked in the mills at Lorain, OH. He was a pipefitter responsible for maintaining the mill. He and his friends would talk about sneaking away and fishing by the river, smoking a dube, while they were suppossed to be working. Again, how can this be workable in a competitive global marketplace?
Furthermore, I’ve met some Honda workers who make the Accord down in Marysville, OH (near Columbus). They make 60k a year and are very happy with their job. The difference is that lazy workers get fired, and pay increases/promotions are tied to performance instead of seniority – the standard union system.
As to your globalism/free trade rhetoric, it is in fact beneficial for our nation. I’ll trust the word of Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman (god rest his soul), Edmund Phelps, et al. over some protectionist, alarmist hack like Lou Dobbs or Pat Buchanan. Wealth is simply shifting in our country – places in right to work states with favorable business climates are booming – places like Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, etc. I was out in Phoenix recently and they are building another huge loop 10 miles out in the desert because of the anticipated growth. The economic picture is not all that bleak, my friend. However, the days of union gravy train jobs are over. I don’t know where you live, but here in the rust belt many people just don’t get this. They think the mills are coming back, etc. Sorry guys, but you need to pony up, take out college loans like I did, and get educated to make it in this world. This is not a new development – it has been happening for a long, long time, but people just don’t want to accept it. They long for the 1950s and work at low wage jobs.

JasonBourne81
I have not nor have I ever supported the UAW and its outrageous contracts with the big three automakers. The Unions however are not alone in extorting the automakers. It has been the democratic party that for 40 years wrote favorable labor law that allowed this to happen.
They are correcting the errors of the past but that does not excuse you cheerleading for their demise. If Congress had any sense they would reform the union benefits and labor contract provisions to help rather than to penalize them.
They have not.
On to your Globalist wet dream of Milton Friedman and the so called Free Trade that he has promoted unconstitutional trade agreements like NAFTA. The promise of NAFTA has been a complete disaster for the American Worker.NAFTA has resulted in 6 million jobs lost here in America so I fail to see how that is a benefit.
When you say that you support the writings of Friedman, do you have any common sense to observe what is happening to the American middle class?
How is sending American jobs overseas benefit America?
How does sending manufacturing plants to China benefit the average American?
The only benefit is to multi national corporations that have no loyalty to the American worker who built their enterprises in the first place. Your contention that Wealth is simply shifting in our country is a very astute observation.
Corporations are making record profits at the expense of their workers. As an example, do you think the recent trend in CEOÔø?s making hundreds of millions dollars in pay and stock options is a benefit to the company and workers? The kind of outrageous pay is a very recent trend in American Corporate History that we have not seen since the day of the Robber Barons of Carnegie and Rockefeller.
Your argument that we all buck up and get a higher education to compete in the global economy is another pipe dream. AmericaÔø?s high tech workers are being in-sourced by H1B visa holders that are replacing American workers at a frightening pace.
I urge you to read; Debunking the Myth of a Desperate Software Labor Shortage online at:http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/itaa.real.html
My next door neighbor used to work for Microsoft and was replaced by an Indian H1B Visa holder that he was asked to train BTW.
They told him initially he would be working for my neighbor then it was announced he would be replaced with the foreigner taking over the department.
He had 20 years in the programming business and now cannot find work and has just used up his unemployment benefits. The Indian Computer programmer was started at just shy of 40k 1/3 of what my friend used to earn.
Do a google on how Bill Gates in going to use its subsidiaries in Canada to get around hiring Americans with the experience and education.
You really need to bone up on the H1B issue. It is just like illegal immigration. The big multi nationals are systematically replacing the workforce with cheaper foreign labor. If they cannot outsource their business operations to a foreign country they are using H1BÔø?s to insource cheaper foreign labor. The multi nationals are trying to eliminate the middle class in America which has always been a thorn in their budgets.
Offshoring is not trade, free or otherwise. It is labor arbitrage. By replacing US labor with foreign labor in the production of goods and services for US markets, US firms are destroying the ladders of upward mobility in the US. So far economists of Milton Friedman ilk have preferred their delusions to the facts.
It is a mystery how a people, whose economic policy is turning them into a third world country with its university graduates working as waitresses, bartenders, and driving cabs, can regard themselves as a hegemonic power even as they build up war debts that are further undermining their ability to pay their import bills.
I am not alone in this view. People like Sloan Foundation President Ralph Gomory has just recently written a book on the subject: Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests.
Here are some excerpts:
“Multinational corporations are now highly profitable, but by shifting their production offshore, they are no longer adding to the nation’s GDP. “The country and companies are going off in two different directions,” says Gomory The traditional theory of free trade, in place for two centuries, no longer makes sense and must be replaced with a new model, given the radical changes that have taken place in the global economy over the past 30 years.”http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/07/0917/art1.html
The US is on a path to economic Armageddon. Shorn of industry, dependent on offshored manufactured goods and services, and deprived of the dollar as reserve currency, the US will become a third world country.
Pat Buchanan has been warning us about this for over 20 years and he has been prophetic on what is happening to America. It is not protectionist to encourage American industry to stay right here in America using the tax code and tariffs to ensure that result.

Bottom line: China, Mexico, and even Vietnam are BUILDING factories, and America is CLOSING THEM DOWN. You can go anywhere in the Eastern US and see street after street of closed factories, and those jobs are being replaced by bullshit service jobs that pay next to nothing, with no benefits. We’re allowing countries that don’t even have indoor plumbing to place products next to our products, when WE have to bear the all the costs of safety standards, environmental standards, a legal system, liability, a safe highway system, insurance, and about a million other things.

Scotty,
3rd time’s a charm, maybe? Do you care to address the fact that Toyota, Nissan, and Honda employ millions of American workers earning middle class wages?
Furthermore, where do you see me cheerleading the American auto industry demise (at least in terms of the Big 3)? I am a God loving, patriotic American. I want to see them succeed. We both do. It is the Big 3 that don’t want to help themselves, or take approaches for them to succeed.
You say things correctly that it is more than just unions – I wholeheartedly agree. Management culture is to blame in a major way. Many of the Big 3’s CEO’s, particularly at GM (Rick Wagoner), have been fleecing their companies for all you can get. Why should I give a crap about buying a Ford, Chrysler, or Chevy to pad the pockets of CEOs when I could buy a Honda, Toyota, or Nissan and know that my money IS IN FACT TAKING CARE OF AMERICAN WORKERS?
You have ignored the point that many American jobs rely on Japanese-affiliated auto companies – please address this – I’d be honestly interested to hear your response.

JasonBourne81
The problem with your arguments is that on one hand you say you do not hate American industry but the tone of your writings is that Japan Inc is our savior. You blame American industry but do not understand that it is Congress and the Free Trade Agreements are largely responsible for the takeover of our industrial base.
Detroit is now making fine cars that are equal to the imports. The problem is the perception of the American public. For example, I purchased a Lincoln back in 2001 and it has not had one warranty claim or problem for six years. So much for the idea American cars are junk. It was manufactured at the Wixom Assembly Plant with American labor. Sadly, due to the UAW and benefit packages negotiated under the dept of labor it is has been shut down. I agree that assembly line workers making $180,000 a year with benefits is outrageous but this did not happen without Government intervention in the past with the help of Congress. The Congress is abandoning our corporations whilst encorouging foreign imports.They could revise our labor laws and allow the auto makers to renegotiate those contracts.
How nuts is that?
You say they are providing jobs replacing that we have incurred. It is not a zero sum game. Read the GDP figures and you will see that the few jobs Toyota, Nissan, and others have brought to America are mere pittance to the 6 million that have been off-shored. Their corporate offices are still in their home countries where the majority if the jobs are based.
Gomory points out that if we used the us tax code to encourage successful multi national corporations to stay in America, that we still would be highly competitive with the slave labor camps in China. Instead, we have idiots in Congress that worship at the alter of Friedman and propose un free trade agreements that put our country at a disadvantage in the hopes that Red China will become a democratic free country. Their wet dream is for a one world order where labor and goods are just commodities. They think the nation state is an outmoded concept that is to be abolished.
There is no reason to allow Nike to go to China when their products could be produced here and be competitive. Instead, they have produced their shoes in slave labor camps so the CEO can pull down 400 million and they can give Tiger Woods 60 million a year. Philip Knight, CEO of Nike is the sixth richest man in America. He is worth 5 billion dollars and profits off the backs of sweatshop laborers.If he tool a 20% pay reduction Americans could be producing his shoes at a profit.
The SEC has been absent since the late 1980’s and has refused to enforce sec regulations that resulted in outrageous pay that publicly traded companies are paying their corporate officers. They have let down share holders and the American worker in the process.
China is becoming a super power at America’s expense. Our standard of living has been in a downward spiral for the last 30 years thanks to these foreign trade agreements.
Just like with the illegal immigration issue Americans need to demand that their elected leaders stop selling out American before it is too late. Our leaders have sold us out to Globalism.
For a primer on the Globalization of America:
The Globalization Strategy: America and Europe in the Cruciblehttp://www.augustreview.com/issues/regionalization/the_globalization_strategy%3a_america_and_europe_in_the_crucible_200604072/

One last note on standard of living.
I guess it is like the old saying that if you throw a frog into pot of water he will jump but if you slowly increase the temperature he is cooked.
I am old enough to remember when a father could support his family on one income while the mother could take care of the kids in a modest home.
For people that were born after these international trade policies that have not seen the standard living go down like people of my age group.It is difficult for them to understand what is happening. They have not experienced the decline like the baby boomers of my generation.
I was able to buy a brand new car,cash out the door,$2800.00 .I earned the money part time in High School in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s
It only took me a couple of years making $3.50 an hour to save that dough while living at home with my parents. I even earned my tuition for college and did not need a loan or my parents to pay for my education on that wage.
Try that today folks.
I could give you hundreds of examples but slowly our standard of living is being brought down and a two class system of wealth is being born in the USA for the first time in history.
The elite rich ruling class and everyone else.
I am not talking about John Edward’s socialist dream of two Americas either. So spare me the ridicule on that point.

A BIG problem is that companies should not be allowed to promise pensions, because nobody can guarantee they will repay you in 40 years, just when you’re old and frail, and you’re completely vulnerable to being cheated. All retirement money (including SS!) should be REQUIRED to be held in actual accounts, with actual assets. It’s so simple.

steve ventry
I could not agree more about the UAW and other pensions.They never intended to pay the retirees, it was just a contractual bullet point to get the union workers to vote yes.
Kinda like the promise of SS.